


Tastes kind of sweet

by hereticpop



Category: the GazettE
Genre: Crack, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-16
Updated: 2011-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-09 20:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereticpop/pseuds/hereticpop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter is coming. It pretty much came already, and rather unexpectedly too. Or the tale of how Aoi quit smoking, Ruki sold his soul and Kai made new friends (but not really). Among other things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tastes kind of sweet

**Author's Note:**

> for [jrockurisumasu](http://jrockurisumasu.livejournal.com) fic exchange.

There is a monster in the room. It’s kind of tiny, with a huge head and even bigger eyes, no mouth, but a stylish jacket and silver accessories. The accessories look somewhat familiar. The monster is exuding an aura of murder about to happen.

“Which fucker spilled coffee on my magazine?” Its voice is scratchy but deep. Sort of familiar too, Aoi thinks.

Ruki isn’t a petty man. He may be annoyingly particular about some things and self-absorbed here and there, and have a little bit of a diva streak (but then who is Aoi to point out other people’s diva streaks), but he isn’t petty. He isn’t a morning person either, hidden inside a shell of his beanie, sunglasses and a facemask, he almost isn’t a person at all, and it’s barely past 8 a.m. and it all could explain why a coffee stain on a glossy page matters so much to him. Aoi doesn’t think it should matter as he pushes his paper cup away on the table until it looks like it isn’t his.

Sometimes Aoi thinks this band is a bunch of weirdos, which would make him the only sane one. Sometimes he thinks Uruha might be the other sane one, but other times he doesn’t. Maybe they’re just giving Uruha too much credit.

Kai has been eyeing Aoi like some kind of revelation since the minute Aoi walked in.

“I’m saying this as your friend. Don’t do it,” Kai said yesterday, voice grim like a hollow coffin, and it took Aoi a little bit of forceful brain labour to realise that no one was dying and Kai had just overheard him inviting Uruha for drinks.

“Why not?” Aoi asked, but Kai just put a hand to his shoulder and squeezed. Then he walked away.

“What’s his problem?” Aoi wasn’t sure if he had been missing something here or if he should be just freaked out. Reita looked up from his phone for long enough to see Kai’s back and his stiffened shoulders as they were disappearing down the hallway.

“Bad memories,” Reita said. “Or no memories.”

Aoi had a feeling Reita could have been speaking from experience too.

But Aoi only has nice memories from last night, and they didn’t even get so drunk. They stumbled out of the bar when it was snowing and they were looking up and trying to eat the snowflakes and Uruha started to sing and okay, maybe they weren’t so sober after all. Aoi never realised he hasn’t slept that night at all.

*

By the time Reita and Uruha arrive, which is forty minutes late, Ruki has fallen asleep on a tiny couch in the corner. Aoi is nursing his second cup of coffee and flipping through Ruki’s magazines for a third time. Kai just looks angry.

“It’s a fucking blizzard out there!” Reita says, shrugging his jacket off in the doorway. Uruha is shaking snow out of his hair and Aoi wonders if Uruha didn’t sleep that night either, he doesn’t know why.

“What the hell is that.” Reita stops by the cardboard Gackt propped against a wall. Real size.

There are no windows in the room, so Aoi goes out to the hallway and into the restroom and there is a tiny window there. At first he thinks some idiot must have painted it white, because he can only see white, but then he can see... white. Sky. Snow. Ground. Everything is white.

On his way back he can already hear Kai and Reita discussing cardboard Gackts and recordings, Kai’s laugh reverberates off the corridor walls and Aoi thinks it’s going to be a long day. He has no idea how long, actually.

*

They’re having a break around lunch time and Uruha looks like he wants to go over the song they’ve been discussing _one more time_ , but if they do that, Aoi thinks he’s going to be sick. He escapes to the break room where Reita and Kai escaped to, but he stops in the doorway, listening. Either he’s tired and hearing noises in his head, or there is something weird going on outside.

He doesn’t have a chance to ask if anyone hears it too, because something pushes him from behind and Ruki walks in behind him.

“Turn the TV on,” he says and no one complains about being ordered around only because he sounds serious.

Reita reaches for the remote and turns it on, but there’s only grey mess and buzzing. Next channel, same, next channel, same, he continues until he finds a news channel that works, although at first it seems just like the previous ones: white and grey flickering, unpleasant buzz in the background. It’s only when they hear the drone of a newscaster’s voice that they realise that what they took for TV static is actually Tokyo. Live broadcast.

“What the hell...” Aoi blurts out but no one pays attention to him, he doesn’t realise he said anything himself. Everything is noise; Japanese words coming from the TV sound like a foreign language, everything outside of the screen seems blurred like in a dream and everything on the screen is blurred too, but in a disgustingly real way. _Snow... blizzard... anomaly... citizens advised... stay inside..._ None of this makes sense.

“Guys,” Kai says in the sudden silence when the broadcast switches to the studio and there’s no howling wind except for the one outside. “I think it’s the end of the world.”

For once no one retorts. They keep staring at the TV, hypnotised.

*

“What do you mean, we can’t go out?” Ruki is still talking to the staff in the hallway when Aoi and Reita run past him to the front door. 

“Take your sunglasses off and you’ll see why,” Reita calls to him, plastered to the glass and trying to see anything himself, but it’s hard when the omnipresent white hurts his eyes with the brightness and maybe Ruki’s sunglasses aren’t such a bad idea. Even though sun seems to have died for good. It’s not that the ground is covered with snow–there is no ground anymore, only a swollen sea of white, as if a huge can of whipped cream exploded somewhere in the sky and devoured everything else there was. And the snow keeps falling, in mad whirls, huge flakes that look almost sick, falling and falling from the white bleached sky.

The cars in the parking lot are plunged in the snow up to the hoods and there is no way they would start even if the roads were in any state to be used.

Reita can hear Aoi sighing next to him.

“We’re pretty much stuck here, aren’t we?”

The others were still watching TV when they left them, so Ruki turns hopefully to Uruha, who walks to them slowly, stretching as if he just woke up.

“Anything new they said?”

Uruha shrugs and shakes his head. “Kai thinks we’re all going to die, though. He’s trying to call his mom, but the phones are acting weird.”

Uruha hovers behind Aoi’s shoulder to take a look outside and Aoi wriggles.

“We’re pretty much stuck here,” Uruha says.

“That’s what I said,” Aoi says.

*

Uruha suggests to continue discussing songs, as they have nothing else to do and they could carry on with the meeting just as well, but it seems to be the last thing on everyone’s mind. They have to take a drumstick away from Kai after he’s been beating the same nervous rhythm against the edge of the table for five minutes straight and someone has an excellent idea to give him the cardboard Gackt to hold onto instead, so now Kai is sitting on the couch in a corner doing just that. 

Ruki and Reita beg a camera off the staff, claiming the whole situation will make for great footage for a behind-the-scenes DVD.

“It’s not like we’re doing any work, though,” Aoi points out, but he makes sure to be caught on the camera at his best angle. He’s pretty content with himself, until his fingers close on a cigarette and he looks down and realises it’s his last one.

This fucking snow better melt away really soon.

*

Three hours later Aoi tries stealing a smoke from Ruki but he gets caught and Ruki is not amused.

“Sorry, man, but this is, like, war. God knows how long we’re gonna be here and I need to think about my well-being first.”

But Aoi’s desperation knows no boundaries and he’s ready to do dirty favours, anything to get that cigarette, and Ruki seems moved (or considering those favours) and eventually gives him a half. It’s a sad half and Aoi gets tobacco pieces in his mouth, but he’s never been happier.

When it gets dark outside and the snow situation still hasn’t changed, everyone is starting to get really worried. Kai on the other hand seems to have come to terms with the imminent doom and becomes much brighter and generally energetic.

“I made tea, who wanted tea?” he chirps, passing the steaming mugs. “We still have food, so I think we can easily make it until tomorrow at least.”

It becomes apparent they’ll have to spend the night, unless a miracle happens. No one says it, but they’re all hoping for a miracle.

*

Aoi runs into Uruha in the restroom. Uruha is washing his hands and checking his face in the mirror and doesn’t look in the least upset, by anything. Aoi is upset. Aoi’s bones feel tight and he’s been inhaling Ruki’s second-hand smoke for quite a while now. 

“You wouldn’t think this would happen when it started to snow last night,” Uruha says.

No, definitely not. You wouldn’t think this would happen ever. Aoi leans against a wall and presses his palms to the cold tiles. It sends a shiver down his spine, but it feels somehow good. He’s watching Uruha’s profile, partially covered by the hair falling onto Uruha’s face, and he starts to get ideas.

“You know,” he says and his voice sounds tight now too, echoing against the cold white walls, “what would you say about taking a walk?”

Uruha turns to him, he doesn’t understand. Aoi grins.

*

“This is not what I thought you’d meant when you said a walk.” 

Wrapped in his puffy jacket, Reita’s scarf and with the fur of his hood around his face, there’s not much of Uruha left. Aoi’s too busy battling with the window to care. They were going to use the door, but it wouldn’t open due to _too much snow_ outside. Uruha thought _too much snow_ was an important piece of information here, one that Aoi chose to ignore completely.

“Yes!” Aoi hisses triumphantly when the window gives in. He motions for Uruha to go ahead.

“You sure about this?” Uruha asks again, but he’s already sitting on the sill with Aoi successfully blocking his way back.

“Oh come on, what could go wrong?” Aoi says and that’s when Uruha jumps, right into the snow below and the snow swallows him and now there is no Uruha left at all. “Hey, you alright?” Aoi suddenly gets worried. He climbs onto the windowsill and crouching, he looks down trying to make out the dark shape in the white mess.

“Aoi, I don’t think it’s such a good idea...” Uruha’s muffled voice comes, yes, he’s alive, Aoi breathes with relief, except that he slips at the same time and falls down, and he’s not sure if Uruha is still alive under him.

The thick snow layer is like a cave around them.

“Get off me,” Uruha says.

Aoi does.

“The store is right around the corner,” he says in what he thinks is a reassuring manner. “All we need to do is walk.”

In the meantime, Ruki is organising a helicopter rescue team for his dog (left behind in his apartment) and Kai is serving tea to the cardboard Gackt (so maybe he’s not as fine as he seemed after all), but neither of them knows. At least the snow storm calmed down, it’s only falling now. Falling and falling.

*

Walking is not as easy as it sounds. 

There are walls of snow around them and, covered in snow, they’re like two snowmen trudging through a snowy labyrinth. Which makes for a lot of snow, if you think about it. Aoi tries not to think about it, although it’s not easy when more snow is falling onto him from every side. He can hear a rustle behind his back so he knows Uruha is still there, even if he hasn’t said anything for a while, and he’s going to be there until he gets completely buried under the snow. Or both of them will. Most probably.

It feels as if they’ve been walking for hours although it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes, and Aoi is too scared to look behind and see how little progress they’ve made. If he looked behind, he could accidentally see Uruha too and that for some reason scares him just as much.

“Aoi...”

Aoi shivers.

“...are you sure we’re going the right way?”

“Huh?”

He turns around. The only visible part of Uruha is the upper half of his face, with some strands of hair completely wet now, plastered to his forehead and cheeks. He’s trying to brush them away, but it’s rather hard in thick gloves and with snow sticking to everything. Thrown off, Aoi looks around. The scenery is eerie, the fields of glistening snow spreading in every direction seem completely foreign, he can’t make out where the street is, or where anything is, and in the dark all the corners look the same. He needs two glances towards the studio building to realise that is where they came from. It suddenly appears very strange, like he’s never been here before and if he has to be honest, Aoi isn’t all that sure they are going the right way.

He doesn’t say it.

Uruha’s hood falls off his head when he tilts his face up to eat snow and that’s when Aoi notices they stopped.

“Come on, we should be walking,” he says. There’s a noise coming from the sky above them that sounds like something bad is about to happen–or a helicopter, but there’s no way it would be. They can’t see it in the dark.

Uruha starts walking again, but he continues to eat falling snowflakes and he stumbles every three steps.

*

It’s freezing on the rooftop and the sound is deafening and Reita wonders why in hell he even came here, except that this is something he wouldn’t want to miss. 

“Tell me you don’t have any yakuza connections,” he shouts over the noise, watching Ruki take Koron from the hands of the rescue team guy. There’s also a (Prada) bag with Koron’s possessions.

Ruki can’t hear him, though, or he just doesn’t want to.

*

Uruha stumbles one more time and collides with Aoi and they both land in the snow. Aoi suddenly remembers he hasn’t slept in a long time. 

“Can we rest for a while?” Uruha asks, lying on his back with his arms spread to the sides.

“Alright,” Aoi says, although they’re already resting. He shifts so that he is lying on his back too, next to Uruha. He closes his eyes and lets the snow fall onto his face. There’s another night sky under his eyelids and it seems it’s snowing there too.

“Uruha...”

“Hmm?”

Aoi props himself up on his elbows, slipping on the snow. There was something he wanted to ask but now that he looks at Uruha, actually looks at him, he can’t recall what it was. He knows he isn’t scared, though. He’s so un-scared now that he leans on one elbow–and slips again, and falls onto Uruha’s chest.

“What the...” Uruha groans, trying to get up and then his phone starts ringing.

*

“Where the hell are you?” Reita thought Uruha was never going to pick up. 

“Out...” there’s some noise, as if maybe Uruha is shifting, “...side.”

Reita doesn’t get it.

“Outside of what?”

“Outside of inside.”

“Outside of... Wait, you mean _outside_?”

Even Ruki, rather immersed in the Arashi DVD he is watching, turns away from the screen and mouths “...the fuck?” to Reita. Reita just rolls his eyes and shrugs.

“What are you doing there?”

“Aoi...” More noise and a faint _Aoi, get off me!_ before Uruha puts the phone back to his face. “Wanted to buy cigarettes. So we went.”

“Is Aoi with you?”

*

Uruha nods, forgetting Reita can’t see him. 

Aoi stops trying to snatch the phone away and just pouts, defeated. “You didn’t need to tell them.”

*

“Hang in there. We’ll get you some help.” 

Reita hangs up with a sigh.

“Maybe we could send a dog sled for them,” he says. Ruki catches his gaze travelling to Koron safely wrapped in a blanket in his lap.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Kai walks in with the cardboard Gackt under his arm, Ruki turns the volume up and with Arashi song blasting through the room, Reita thinks it’d be the best to try and get some sleep.

*

“Reita says they’re gonna get help.” 

Aoi is still pouting. Uruha doesn’t know what about.

“It’s kind of nice here, though,” he says.

It is quite nice. Snow keeps falling in a way that seems heavy, and they’re covered with it so much that they seem to be blending with all the whiteness, all the shiny softness, and it feels like they’re a part of something great. The air feels sharp-edged in their lungs, but there is something familiar about the stinging that it leaves, and it tastes kind of sweet too, even if it’s just Aoi’s imagination.

Or hallucination.

He thinks of something again.

“Uruha. When you got home last night. Did you go to sleep?”

“Sure. What else was I supposed to do?”

Uruha is sitting on the ground, trying to shake the snow out of his hair.

Aoi decides to quit smoking.


End file.
